Beyond Good

In this episode of The Beyond Good Podcast, Matt and Femi discuss resilience.  There is an old adage that students should be working harder than the teacher, and they explore this, discuss what they each think is right at the core of good teaching, talk about engineering success, what that looks like in the classroom and how it evolves over time, metacognitive understanding and touch on teacher resilience amongst other things.

The theme of Femi and Matt's discussion in this episode is “things that schools could get rid of - or at least do less of”.   While it is rarely the case that these ‘things’ are totally ineffective, more likely they are effective to some degree, but in the cost-benefit analysis do they meet the threshold of being effective enough to justify our time?  Could they be culled in order to allow us to spend more time doing things that are even more effective?With no subject specific element to this topic, and colleagues from all walks will hopefully enjoy the discussion.  

In this episode Femi and Matt discuss what they were each doing at the beginning of their teaching careers that they felt was very effective, and as importantly what they were not doing, and then what other aspects came in later when more bandwidth came online as they developed automaticity (unconscious competence).This is a discussion about low hanging fruit / first order effects / climbing the steepest part of the curve as quickly as possible and the law of diminishing returns.  For the most part this episode is not maths-specific and there is value here to teachers from all specialisms.  The duo also talk about how important it is to be constantly striving to improve teaching and share what they are each working on at the moment.  They elucidate the 'soft' metrics that they were using to test their own competence while developing skills in these core areas.  Alongside this is the emphasis on sticking with an approach, reflecting and refining the ability to make it work effectively, and not giving up and looking for the next silver bullet.

This week Femi and Matt discuss ‘making the most of your training year’ – in response to listener demand!  Much of what is covered will be useful for trainees and ECTs, as well as mentors and anyone thinking of taking on a mentoring role.  Indeed,  some of the conversation is ever-green as they do cover areas such as planning, resources and feedback.  

In this episode the seemingly mundane topic of 'meetings' comes under Femi and Matt's scrutiny.  Both have sat in meetings, like so many of us, with utter dismay at the terribly ineffective  use of time and frankly sometimes callous disrespect for colleagues' time as lengthy agendas are gradually ticked off with a series of mainly one to one discussions...In this conversation Matt and Femi don't do much complaining: instead they focus on what they are currently doing differently now that they are in charge of how their meeting times are used.This has a huge effect on the culture and morale of colleagues so really is worth thinking about... and as always, the boys do not shy away from getting into the fine details that are the differences that make the difference.

In this episode Matt and Femi speak with Sam Roberts.  Sam Roberts is best known for his work in sports broadcasting - particularly as a rugby commentator.  However Sam is also a teacher, and so is able to speak from the intersection of a fairly unique Venn diagram – bridging the worlds of teaching and elite-level sports performance.As you will hear, Sam speaks passionately about performance mindset and mental fitness for teaching.   He discusses how he was inspired by Don McPherson and the millennias-old concept of ‘monkey mind’, thinking about teachers as elite performers and how they can benefit from mental fitness and mindset coaching.  The trrio cover some of the barriers to do this effectively in schools, the effects of self-talk and your inner voice, the importance of belief, imposter syndrome, the concept of the accidental mind-coach, coaching vs giving advice, the role of HR in supporting teachers, and other topics.

Join Femi and Matt as they share their thoughts and experiences of running professional development for teachers in their departments.  Mentioned in this episode is the EEF - the Education Endowment Foundation and if you are not familiar with their work, we highly recommend spending some time on their website, and in relation to this episode, reading their guidance report on 'Effective Professional Development'.

This week on the podcast Matt and Femi talk to special guest Mike Stuart about his many years of experience as a head of year.  They discuss relationships, 'the first assembly',  taking assemblies, tutor times - and being a visible presence amongst the year group,  fierce conversations, "not just the naughties", role clarity and looking after yourself, amongst other topics.

In this episode Femi and Matt discuss Robert Pondiscio's AEI Op-Ed titled 'Confronting 5 Damaging Educational Myths'.  The discussion elicits some interesting and useful points with the following 6 myths coming under fire from the duo:“I don’t teach facts. I teach critical thinking.”“Reading is a skill.”“This is too hard/inappropriate/irrelevant for my students.”“Children have different learning styles.” “Teach kids to think like a scientist” (or a historian or other expert)“Who needs rote learning? You can just Google facts.”

In this episode Femi and Matt explore high quality science teaching with Rob Newman.  They discuss the importance of identifying and then observing established good teachers, having quality conversations about teaching, filtering the noise of ‘advice’ coming from all corners and crucially; ignoring the feedback that was not helpful.  Rob talks about where time is wasted in lessons and what good teachers do instead, the power of relentless routines, clarity of teacher talk – concise clear explanations / modelling, lots of practise time and time on task for students.  They discuss the ever present tension between time spent practising vs covering the curriculum and how good science departments develop their curriculum and lessons to best manage this, the features of a good science lesson – retrieval, practise, teacher circulating and supporting students and silent independent work.  Rob explains the difference between checking for listening and checking for understanding, and highlights key features of practicals and demonstrations - emphasising the need for teachers to be absolutely clear on what the purpose is for that practical.  The trio discuss text books, their utility, their lack of prevalence in English science departments, and the need for texts with a good volume of high quality questions for students to work through.